You said that your editor is free software, meaning that no one made money on you using it. I'm not sure how this refutes the point about a "_viable_ company." (Given that viable necessarily includes making money.)
I suspect rdtsc meant free as in freedom. There are several companies successfully founded and running on free software. An example I saw recently is the French telecommunications provider Free. Much of the software running on their set-top-boxes is licensed under GPL and they provide the source code as required by the licence. They have dealt serious damage to more traditionally minded companies.
Invasion of privacy is not a requisite for company viability.
I wasn't claiming that viable companies can't use or produce free software. I was just claiming that the fact that one can use a free editor to write some code has nothing to do with whether the company producing the editor is viable.
Invasion of privacy is not a requisite for company viability.